How does shopping experience, data or AI change customer engagement?

Companies are constantly facing the challenge of meeting customer expectations. In turn, customer behavior in terms of their engagement with companies is constantly changing, increasing their demands and expectations, especially now, with the advent of new technologies such as generative artificial intelligence.

So far, generative AI has provided companies with an enormous tool and opportunity to help overcome challenges or develop new strategies more efficiently and quickly. However, in the face of this new way of developing business activities, it is useful to understand and reflect on what customers want now or how companies can implement AI in a responsible way that maintains trust with people.

To this end, Salesforce has presented the sixth edition of its "State of the Connected Customer" report, for which it surveyed 14,300 enterprise and consumer customers around the world to get their opinions and views on generative AI as a tool to improve the customer experience.

Overall, customers were receptive to artificial intelligence as long as it is transparent and secure and enhances their experiences. Similarly, customers shared their new demands for faster, more consistent and personalized interactions with companies. For companies, this is a key moment to know how to implement generative artificial intelligence in their activities, always taking into account the loyalty and trust of consumers.

Customer expectations in the changing landscape

Customer priorities

Global factors such as inflation and technological advancement are leading people to rethink what those really important issues are, making them think hard about where and how they spend their money.

According to the report presented by Salesforce, the factor that has most affected consumers' priorities is the cost of living at 82%, followed by people's well-being at 44%, technological advances at 34% and climate change at 23%. This makes it clear that cost of living remains the main factor influencing people's priorities, the same reason that makes customers move from brand to brand when they find better deals.

While customers tend to look for the best deals, it is not the only thing they look for. Product quality remains an essential factor, as does the customer experience. Eighty percent of customers say that the experience a company offers is as important as its products and services.

Personalization

Personalization is one of the strong trends that is emerging in the activities of companies to please their customers, and it has become a key principle of customer engagement today.

Thus, 65% of customers expect companies to adapt to their changing needs and preferences. In turn, two-thirds of customers in general expect companies to tailor experiences to their evolving needs and preferences. Still, 61% of respondents feel that companies treat them as a number rather than a person, something that is especially demonstrated for relatively low-transaction consumers, who do not command the attention of large companies in relation to maintaining a personalized experience.

Data and technology

It is no longer a secret to customers that companies rely on data to meet their expectations for personalized service and treatment, but it is now more common for consumers to expect something in return when they provide data. In fact, more customers now see data as a determining factor in the personalized experience they demand. Seventy-four percent of respondents expect personalization to be better when they provide more data, while 73% believe personalization should be better when technology advances and 64% of customers, when they spend more.

Here, technological advances such as generative AI can help companies work on personalization that is increasingly closer to customers' standards.

Customers demand care with their data

With the awareness of the value of data, customers are increasingly demanding data protection. At this point, companies must work to gain the trust of customers, and customers (71%) feel more willing if they receive a clear and concise explanation of how their data will be used. Similarly, customers (44%) feel more reassured when companies collect first-party data directly from their platforms than when they obtain data from external vendors.

Customer engagement evolves

Online and offline shopping

After the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 customers changed their shopping behavior and when it was finally possible to return to physical stores, people were going to shop simply for experience rather than necessity. Now 2024 will see customer interaction with online channel shopping go up slightly. Against this trend, 74% of customers say they expect to be able to perform any activity they do in person over the phone or online.

For their part, retailers continue to work to improve the in-store experience as physical stores remain critical to driving shopper interaction. As such, retailers are increasingly fine-tuning experiences to differentiate themselves from the competition.

Currently, 59% of retailers are offering appointment scheduling services, 51% event space, 50% augmented reality and 45% virtual stylist.

Content for each channel

Social networks are emerging as one of the digital communication channels par excellence, however, companies often fail to manage in the best way the interaction with each of the channels. On average, business customers interact with 10 channels, while consumers interact with 8.

Meanwhile, 71% of customers say they prefer different channels depending on the content and context. In this sense, Facebook is the most popular social platform for interaction with the brand worldwide, although this varies by region.

Self-service for simple tasks and human support

While human assistance will always be more highly valued by users, for simple, uncomplicated tasks, users (61%) prefer self-service assistance such as account portals, FAQs and chatbots. This is a preference that is more prevalent among millennials or Z generations.

However, companies need to work carefully on the implementation of self-service tools as more than a third of customers (68%) say they would not use a chatbot again after a negative experience.

On the other hand, human assistance continues to be presented as a differentiating factor, with almost half of the customers stating that they would be willing to pay more in exchange for a better service, which highlights the importance of the customer experience with human treatment.

One of the main points to mention is that users expect an effective instant response. Thus, 77% of customers expect to interact with someone immediately after connecting with a company.

Good service experience drives sales

Good customer service will always reward companies, and those companies that prioritize good service experience not only work in favor of growing their reputation but also their business. Thus, 88% of customers say that good customer service exponentially increases the chances that they will make another purchase.

The good service offered by companies to their customers also influences purchase decisions, in addition to improving abandonment rates.

In this sense, offering a proactive customer service instead of waiting for the customers themselves to present the case is increasingly expected by users, with 53% of them expecting companies to anticipate their needs but only 33% stating that most companies address problems in a proactive manner.

In this same aspect, although customers (79%) value positively the consistency between channels, devices and departments, companies do not always maintain this consistency, especially between channels. Taking into account that 56% of customers say that they have to repeat the information to different representatives of the same company in order to receive an optimal response to their problems. Similarly, 55% state that they generally feel that they communicate with separate departments and not with a single company.

AI goes mainstream and the trust gap widens

Companies embrace generative AI

The possibilities and facilities offered by the advent of AI mean greater efficiency for companies in their activities, time savings and an additional resource to drive the creation of content such as images, text and videos.

Meanwhile, while consumers have an open and positive attitude towards AI, that attitude and confidence has diminished significantly since generative AI has begun to boom. Also, unlike consumers, enterprise customers are more confident about generative AI, assuring that it can improve the customer experience.

Although in general terms the promises of generative AI are increasingly present in the minds of customers and curiosity is kept alive in all aspects, the final reaction varies depending on the age of each customer.

As expected, millennials and generation Z, who arrived with the internet, show greater enthusiasm and curiosity for generative AI, while older generations are more cautious.

Customer trust

As a baseline, establishing a foundation of trust is paramount for business transactions to take place. However, trust is more complex than it may seem. A customer may trust the quality of a company's product, but not necessarily trust its environmental commitment.

Although companies are working to improve trust in all areas, one of the areas that has the greatest impact on trust is ethical AI, with more than half of customers showing trust in companies that use artificial intelligence in an ethical way. For companies, it is important to focus on fostering that trust, as 68% of customers say that in the face of AI advances, it is more important than ever that companies can be trusted.

Customers emphasize the human touch in the age of AI

Among one of the top concerns customers and consumers have in this era is the implications of generative AI on data security, ethics and bias. That's why, as a function of combating those concerns, companies can have a big advantage by focusing their communication on transparent communication of how they use AI and making it clear that employees are leading the work and not the new technologies.

Meanwhile, only 37% of customers trust AI results to be as accurate as an employee. On the other hand, 81% of them want a person to stay on top of the results, validating and reviewing them. So too, 89% of customers demand to know when they are communicating with AI or when they are communicating with a person.

"The risks we focus on are accuracy, bias, toxicity, security and privacy. And we're not alone with these ethical concerns: the audience, our customers and regulators are paying close attention as AI technologies rapidly advance," explains Paula Goldman, director of ethical and human use at Salesforce.

Future outlook: AI driven by trust and ethics

As AI is increasingly implemented in different business models, customers are facing concerns about the responsible use of the technology. For companies, it becomes necessary to develop their AI strategies to increase trust by focusing on those areas that customers themselves define as priorities.

To this end, transparency is a key factor. More than half of customers (57%) say that greater visibility into how AI is applied would increase their trust. This is followed by human validation of the results (52%), more control by the client in knowing how artificial intelligence is applied in their interactions (49%) and external ethical review with 39%.